PART II. 



TRAP-DOOR SPIDERS. 



It is now one hundred and sixteen years since 

 Patrick Browne gave an illustration in his Civil and 

 Natural History of Jamaica"^ of the nest of a trap-door 

 spider, the first record of the kind with which I am 

 acquainted. Seven years later the careful observa- 

 tions of the Abbe Sauvages appeared,! in which he 

 gave a very good description of the nests of tlie 

 " araignee mafonne " {Nemesia ccBmentaria) , which he 

 discovered near Montpellier, likening them to little 

 rabbit burrows lined with silk and closed by a tightly- 

 fitting moveable door. In 1778 and 1794 Eossi | 

 published an interesting account of the nest and 

 habits of a trap-door spider which he had observed in 

 Corsica and near Pisa ; and from that time ujd to the 

 present day the curious dwellings of these creatures, 

 many species of which have been discovered in warm 

 climates, have continued to attract the attention of 

 naturalists. 



Very little, however, has been added to our know- 

 ledge of the life-history of these remarkable archi- 



* p. 420, tab. 44, fig. 3 a. This work was published in London in 175G. 

 f In Histoire de I'Acad. Eoyale des Sciences (Paris 1763), p. 26-30. 

 % Rossi (P.), Osservazione Insettologische (Memorie di Matematica e Fisica 

 della Societa Italiana, vol. iv. (1778), and Fauna Etrusca, vol.ii. (17!'4). 



